and last, Hope
by Luriko-Ysabeth
Summary: Before and during a summer festival, after The Sealed Card, Tomoyo reflects on the nature of hope.


...and last, Hope  
  
The day of the summer festival dawned clear and bright, and the  
forecast told that the evening would remain clear, and that enough of a   
breeze would pick up that the lingering heat would be tolerable. The   
Fortunetelling Sakura Cards, as interpreted by Kero-chan, agreed. Yue's   
dissection and interpretation of the former, with results close enough to   
Kero-chan's that most of the Kinomoto household didn't see why he   
bothered, agreed in every particular. And so Sakura set about making plans   
for them all to meet and walk to it together (aided by the fact that   
Tsukishiro Yukito was sleeping over again, as he had been doing   
increasingly often since the Unsealed Card Incident).  
  
Tomoyo put the telephone down after Sakura hung up and sighed.  
  
She had always known that when Sakura found the person who would   
make her happy, she herself would be increasingly left out, and that   
Sakura would grow away from her.  
  
She just hadn't anticipated how *quickly* Sakura would grow away   
from her. Or how like the onset of influenza it would feel... Watching   
Sakura in secluded girl-in-a-relationship talks with Chiharu or Rika.   
Seeing Sakura act as if, since she had confessed her feelings to Li   
Shaolan, her friendship with Tomoyo had melted away to little more than   
hers with Rika or Naoko, as if Tomoyo had never been the girl she trusted   
enough to be her anamchara. Listening to Sakura try to reestablish that   
same friendship, seemingly ignorant of the causes but vaguely aware of a   
rift where once there had been none --  
  
/"Why didn't you tell me, Tomoyo-chan? I thought we were   
friends?"/  
  
That had been when she had called Hiiragizawa in England, worried   
that Sakura and Kero-chan had completely ignored a possible danger.  
  
After all, the Void had had "negative" power enough to balance out   
all fifty-two "positive" cards. Now that Sakura had transformed it into   
the Hope, surely there was an imbalance? Surely it might be dangerous,   
perhaps even catastrophic?  
  
/"No, not really, Daidouji-san. After all... well, but I suppose   
they don't tell that story, in Japan."/  
  
/"What story is that?"/  
  
/"It's a Greek story... Greece is like China, you understand, in  
Europe; all the cultured stories come from them. Once, all human beings   
were much like Sakura, only even more inclined to go along with what   
people wanted of them. And then one god defied his own in order to make   
the lives of humanity better; and when he had done that, humans began to   
make their own choices. And some of them were good, and some of them were   
ill, as choices ever are./  
  
/"And so the gods, angered that their creation was no longer   
following the lines that they had set for it, determined to punish it as   
well. While before they had made many kind and gentle gifts for humanity,   
now they made cruel and terrible gifts and sealed them in a jar. And they   
took one girl, set insatiable curiosity in her head, and gave the jar to   
her, warning her never to open it..."/  
  
  
The afternoon of the day of the summer festival, Tomoyo went out   
to purchase video cassettes, to be sure that she would have enough to   
record the festival and make copies for Sakura and for the Li cousins. She   
explained as much to Li Meiling when the two ran into each other in the   
store.  
  
"Thanks," Meiling said quickly. They all knew, of course, that   
soon Shaolan and Meiling would have to go back, but they were all   
tiptoeing around the notion and refusing to speak it aloud, keeping this   
precious bubble of happiness for a few more days.  
  
For it was happiness, at least for Sakura -- and Tomoyo had   
discovered long since that if she could not always be happy when Sakura   
was happy, she could *never* be happy when Sakura was not. So she had   
resolved to make Sakura happy whenever she could, and so to be at least   
content.  
  
She half-suspected that the Chinese girl had similar resolutions  
regarding Li Shaolan, but it was not the sort of question one could well   
ask.  
  
"I'm getting a new handbag," Meiling explained, perhaps aware that   
she had been a little abrupt. "My old one has a hole in it, so it won't do   
for the festival tonight."  
  
"Oh. I see." It came out much flatter than she had intended.  
  
"Is something wrong?"  
  
"Hiiragizawa-kun."  
  
"You're still annoyed that he told you a story for an answer and  
wouldn't explain it? Like I said, the clan elders do that *all* the time.   
I know how you feel."  
  
"He *said* there to be no danger of catastrophe, but -- "  
  
"If he said there wasn't, then there wasn't." Meiling tossed her   
head. "Maybe Sakura-chan's got more oomph than he does now, but he   
remembers being one of the very best for centuries, so I'd say he knows   
what he's talking about."  
  
"You are very trusting, Meiling-chan."  
  
"Well... I tend to assume that the magicians know what they're   
talking about when it's magic. After all, if they're wrong, it's not like   
you or I could do anything about it anyway."  
  
Tomoyo disagreed, but she let the sore subject drop.  
  
"Although that *is* weird that he told that story," Meiling   
continued out of nowhere after they had paid for their purchases. "We had   
it in English class, only in our version it was a *box* that had all the   
evils of the world."  
  
"They were not *evils*, exactly," Tomoyo contradicted.  
  
/"They made Disease, for humans had always been healthy; and Old   
Age, for they had been forever young; and Heartbreak, for it had been   
enough to love and know that one's love was alive, and being loved in   
return was mere icing on an already delightful cake..."/  
  
"Although some of them were. Some of them most certainly were."  
  
  
The evening of the festival, they met in front of the Kinomoto  
residence, all of them in yukata. Tomoyo's spare one was a little   
undersized on Meiling, but Shaolan fit perfectly into Touya's castoffs --   
which struck everyone as cute except for the two boys involved.  
  
"I'm letting the Cards out so they can go to the festival," Sakura   
explained.  
  
"You WHAT?" Meiling demanded.  
  
"They promise to be on their best behavior."  
  
"Hey, marbleface in there and I *both* agree it'll work, so I   
don't see why you should put up a rumpus, girl," Kero-chan snapped.  
  
As the small flying teddy bear and Chinese girl glared at each   
other, Tomoyo flipped the switch on her camcorder and began recording   
Sakura calling her Key into form and the sigil forming around her.  
  
The Card Mistress threw all the cards into the air, and waited   
until they began fluttering down around her Keystaff to finish her   
incantation.  
  
"RELEASE!"  
  
And in streaks and streamers of light, they all formed and went   
down the street towards the festival -- some rushing so quickly that they   
undoubtedly did not fully take shape until halfway there, some more   
slowly, and last of all the Light and the Dark bowed to the company and   
walked off after their fellow cards, arm in arm.  
  
"I'm glad you're staying to walk with us," Sakura said, and Tomoyo  
hastily snapped back to get shots of the four Element Cards, standing   
around the group like so many of the Daidouji family's bodyguards, and the   
Mirror, shyly nestling into Kinomoto Touya.  
  
"Well," Yukito said brightly from the opposite side of Touya,   
"shall we go?"  
  
And they went.  
  
  
For some reason, Tomoyo's odd mood had only gotten stronger since   
they arrived at the festival; she finally turned videotaping Sakura and   
Shaolan over to the Windy and left to wander the festival by herself for a   
while.  
  
At one booth, the Fight was grimly trying to throw balls at a   
stuffed animal and win it; at another, the Big and the Little were trying   
to catch goldfish in little nets. She passed the Power and a few   
half-drunk salarymen laughing and wrestling, turned down a secluded path   
that led into a quiet corner, and nearly tripped over the Silent. The   
Silent looked up, smiled, put a finger to her lips, and went back to   
reading her book. Tomoyo nodded politely and went on wandering.  
  
/"She finally pried the stopper loose, and just as she was about   
to peer in, a terrible, ugly monster shot out. And then another, and   
another."/  
  
But she didn't know why Hiiragizawa Eriol's story was preying on   
her mind; anything further from the peace and joy and laughter of the   
summer festival could not be imagined.  
  
Here the Wood was reuniting a lost child with his mother, there   
Touya and the Mirror were sharing an order of taiyaki while Yukito   
polished off the second of three more, and over to one side Meiling and   
the Jump were playing a game of dodge-me with the Rain.  
  
She had just found another semi-secluded corner after spending   
some time watching the Flower and the Glow dance to the Song's, well,   
song, when she registered that someone else was there.  
  
Tomoyo looked up, and saw the Hope.  
  
  
"To-mo-yo-cha-n," the other said tentatively, after they had   
stared at each other for some time. "You are... Sakura-sama's dearest   
friend."  
  
"I used to be," Tomoyo answered, ignoring the swelling in her   
throat.  
  
"You are not so now?" While the Hope's face was curious, it also   
seemed somehow... sad?  
  
"Sakura-chan and Li-kun..." Tomoyo stopped, thought for a moment,   
and started again. "She loves Li-kun, and I am happy for them. A love that   
can overcome obstacles thus... it is not surprising that they should   
overlook others when caught up in it. Even when she had to seal his most   
precious memories of her, because of you, he loved her still. Or again."  
  
The Hope blinked, lifting one hand to push a strand of pale hair   
back over its shoulder.  
  
"So I suppose, as she loves him, he is become her dearest friend,   
and I am... her second-dearest friend. Perhaps. Although as she seems to   
have forgotten all our closeness, Rika-chan might well be now."  
  
"If the memory of the closeness is gone," the Sakura Card said,   
"that does not mean the closeness is gone, right? So she could make   
another memory of the closeness, even if it isn't the same memory?"  
  
"She... probably could," Tomoyo said tentatively, "but we are not   
as close anymore. Li-kun is closer to her, because he is the person she   
likes, so that makes me farther away."  
  
"The person one likes best... wanting... falling in love," the   
Hope said, "I don't understand these things. I don't understand why humans   
seem to spend so much time on them, and why they get in the way.  
  
"But I understand family. I understand friendship. I know why it's   
important. I know and I comprehend, because Sakura-sama gave me her most   
precious memories of her friendship with you.  
  
"Maybe if she had given me memories of the Li I would understand  
better; or if the Li had given me his memories of her, as he might have   
done had she not aided him. But I heard the Li speaking, and he said that   
he is coming to care for his sisters again, as he has already come once   
more to care for his mother. Surely, if I remember what the friendship   
once meant, and you remember what the friendship once meant, you and   
Sakura-sama can make it come to mean those things once again...?"  
  
But Tomoyo barely caught that last. Her mind was turning earlier   
words over and over.  
  
/"Aided him."/  
  
/"Family."/  
  
/"Her most precious memories..."/  
  
/"The terrible ugly monsters stormed out of the jar, each crueler   
and more terrible than the last."/  
  
/"'It can hardly make things worse,' she sighed, and pried the   
stopper loose once more. Slowly, Hope fluttered out; and she was fair."/  
  
"Fair and terrible..." Tomoyo murmured.  
  
"Did you say something?" the Hope inquired politely.  
  
"Do you have any idea," Tomoyo said, firmly refusing to let her   
voice tremble, "where Sakura-chan might be?"  
  
The Hope's pale eyes blanked out for a moment.  
  
"Sakura-sama is buying sparklers," she said, "with the Li... three   
girls... and a boy who claims that sparklers were created in order to   
scare away ghost foxes."  
  
"Thank you very much," Tomoyo said politely, and set off for that  
corner of the festival at a not-quite-run, the Sakura Card trailing   
behind her.  
  
She had forgotten how much hoping hurt. 


End file.
